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Wanted Dead or Alive:: By: Matthew S. Van Hove
Wanted Dead or Alive:: By: Matthew S. Van Hove
Wanted Dead or Alive:: By: Matthew S. Van Hove
Chapter 1
“Detective John Orville; former lead detective for San Angeles Police department,
formerly Los Angeles Police Department.” An older gentleman sat down at a silver table
in the interrogation room. His soft southern Accent filled the still air. It was the same one
the department had used to question other criminals for years, and now he was there.
John was tired, but he was old so the two kind of went hand in hand. He was pushing
fifty and his waistline surly showed it, his eyes still sparkled blue, and his silver hair was
combed neatly trying to hide a bald spot that was rapidly growing at the back of his
head.
“And do you know why you're hear sir?” A very nondescript agent was already
waiting at the table. They all looked the same, no actual features to tell on from another.
It was supposed to be this way. The only thing that differentiated them were their bar-
coded badges that listed the pronouns they were to be addressed by.
“No, but I have a good idea. It's about time you IDL boys looked into this.” The
agent flinched a bit; it was slight, but John caught it. “Sorry, IDL folks. I don't need
The agent; agent Becks, gave a curt smile and then placed a manila folder on the
table. The word: Classified was stamped in bright red across it. John looked down and
sighed. He knew what it meant, and this little meeting made even more sense now.
“Please, start at the beginning.” Agent Becks said motioning to the folder.
“No the beginning of the case.” Agent Becks cut John off.
“Yeah, and for me to do that, we gotta talk about 1990. I mean that's when all this
Agent Becks' lips tightened buy they relented with a slight nod.
“Alright, like I said, it was 1990, and the internet was just something that the
military was using to communicate with each other. That was until someone got the
bright idea to package it up and make it family friendly. And bam! The World Wide Web
was born. Now we gotta jump from there to 1995. You see, in 1995, the internet was the
wild wild west. You could find anything, you could say anything, and you could pretty
much do anything you wanted. Around this time, we started to see what we now call
Now around the time things started getting serious in cyberspace there was a
group of Black Hats that gathered up a bunch of information. They found something on
the president at the time and even the director of the FBI, so that's when you folks were
formed. The IDL; Internet Defense League. You boys started cracking down on cyber
crimes and soon enough you found all those Black Hats and scrubbed them from the
internet. I don't know what they had on former President Clinton or Director Mueller but
it must have been mighty important.” John reached into his pocket and pulled out a
small crumpled pack of cigarette. He offered one to Agent Becks who shook their head
quickly. Detective Orville then placed it to his lips and sat forward. He opened the folder
“Whatever information they had was enough to put the fear of God into thee
whole damn lot of them. Because they gave you folks carte' blanch to enact any kind of
laws you needed to protect the people from the evils of the internet. And you boys sure
went crazy.” Agent Becks visibly flinched again, John saw it again but chose to ignore it
“First went saying what ever you wanted in comment sections of articles or
videos, then things deemed too offensive got wiped clean, and finally the lock down of
extreme political ideas. Now it all came down to who was really in charge to determine
what was good and bad, but let's just say it was more of a conservative mind set that y'all
made sure got the ax. But there were good things too, in that time, cyberspace got
bigger, faster connection speeds, advancement in technology, and a space where you
could feel secure in the fact that no one would scream or holler at you. People got
smarter, well in the ways of maneuvering through the internet. This did split the web
though.
We now had a place where the Black hats went to hide, and you IDL were always
searching for ways in and trying to track them. The Dark web was formed, or Deep Web,
whatever you prefer. Both are technically right. Now these places, they were still the
wild wild west, so the moniker Black Hat was fitting. You could buy what ever you
wanted in these places, for the right price. Guns, drugs, people, children. I mean it wasn't
a safe haven in the least, but the Black hats thrived just like the other half. Now White
Hats are what y'all call innocents now, people who live their lives following the rules,
not straying too far outside what y'all have decreed as law. Black hats of course are
anyone who doesn't. Makes things simple. Anyway, that's how things were back then.”
John pulled out a picture of a young girl, no more than Twenty, she had blonde
hair and a bright smile. John's lips pursed together causing the unlit cigarette to push
upward.
“And then 1996 happened. This little White Hat girl.” He pushed the picture
“She was too smart for her own good, she got accepted to a really good school,
one of those new tech schools that started popping up everywhere. Promising all sorts of
things. She had her whole thesis already planned out, from day one. Like I said, too
smart for her own good. She was going to document her journey through the darkest
parts of cyberspace, she wanted to see how deep things actually went. So, this little
White Hat girl, she dives in feet first, not having a slightest care in the world for what
Well, she went deep. Breaking through firewalls, passing through hidden sites, she
went as far as one could go. And on a rather busy night, that White Hat girl, she passed
out at her computer. When she woke up, staring her in the face was a sentence in Ddos.
It said simply: Execute A Protocol: Yes or No?”
“It's like I said, she was documenting everything. It was in reams of Journals.
Each breach in a firewall, each hack, each move she made up until that protocol showed
up. She documented everything. Now you gonna let me finish or do I go smoke this
cigarette now?”
“So, as she documented, that little White Hat girl, she made a choice, and we
believe it was the last choice she ever made. Because the journal entry stops after she
says she is going to hit yes. SO the saying goes, Curiosity killed the cat. In this case,
curiosity sent her flying across the room with a jolt of electricity. Or so we believe. See,
she didn't write anything else after that. But, the one thing we do know is that the enter
key on her keyboard was melted. We found her six months later in some run down hovel
of a hotel on what used to be skid row. She was in the same dress she had worn that day,
and well, she had killed someone. You may be too young to remember this case, but it
was the first case of one of the IDL being killed. She had cut off their hands at the wrist,
pulled all the teeth out, and smashed the agents face to the point they couldn't be
recognized. It took weeks of detective work and reconstruction of the skull to figure out
who it was.”
John shifted through the papers and his hand stopped over an image of an old
Hewlett Packard. His fingers twitched and he grabbed it up quickly. The cigarette
pressed between his lips quivered slightly.
“The best we can tell, that jolt crossed some wires in her brain. All she says now is
two things.”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Sorry if I gave you the impression that she was no longer with
us, but she is alive and well. Well as well as she can be with being in a catatonic state
and all. She'll only mumble two things now. One being; You are not prepared. The other
being; He's coming. That 'You are not Prepared' thing was scrawled all over the room we
found her in, she had used the IDL Agents blood as paint and their hands as a gruesome
paint brush. I thought I would spare you those details. But this here, this computer was a
real brain burner. Like I said, we found her six months after all this happened, by all
accounts of her journal, and her dorm sure as hell showed it. Dust was everywhere, and
since she had paid up for the year of school, no one had even tried to enter it.
Now back then, if you didn't pay your electric bill, after the second missed
payment they would shut you off. Her place hadn't had power for a good four months.
The place smelled stale and moldy. Nothing was working, even the water had been shut
off. But this damned thing!” Detective Orville tossed the picture at the IDL agent.
“That damned thing was still working. No one could explain it, on the screen in
blood red letters it stated: You are not prepared. Just like she had scrawled all over the
damn place. We even unplugged the thing and it was still going. We had techs look at it
and they couldn't find any internal battery or anything that would make the thing still
work after four months of no power. So, since the case was pretty much open and shut, it
got put into evidence lock up. Now here's the funny thing about that Hewlett Packard.
The guy over in evidence lock up, he noticed something about it. It took a few months,
but he started to see the color fade. He figured what ever was powering it was finally
dying. But after about a week or so he saw the color start to brighten again. He told me it
was like a pulse, he watched it for a while and each time he was near the damn computer
Now here is the thing that is really gonna bake your noodle. That little White Hat
girl, she got seen by a ton of doctors. By my count she has been seen by a total of ten
over the years. So this newest doctor, with all his new cybernetic enhancements and
shiny new diploma, he gets an idea. Something none of the other doctors had ever tried
by my account. Almost twenty years to the day, evidence lock up gets a call. The doctor
is requesting the computer. Now it is 2016, and we've already been through the new
wave of technology right? So evidence sees no reason not to let the doctor have this old
thing. It's been collecting dust. Damn thing is still on though. The colors had been
changing faster and faster up until this point. Like a heart beat.”
John reaches into his pocket and pulls out a lighter. Agent Becks clears their throat
and points to the no smoking sign. The Detective lights the cigarette anyway. “Trust me,
“So what happened at the hospital Detective Orville?' Agent Becks asked more
“Tell me Detective.”
“Now first let me say this, that jolt from that computer did something to her. She
was so focused on going as deep into the Dark Web as she could that she had blinders
on. That jolt crossed some wires in her brain. I believe that it pushed everything she
drove past to the forefront of her mind. It is all she can see now. All the evil of the
“Can you get to what happened Detective?” The last word made it clear that the
“Well, that little emaciated, catatonic, completely gone girl took out four orderlies
before she could be stopped. Felt bad for that doctor too. All his fancy new cybernetics.
She ripped them right out of his damned head. Even went after the new eye he had put
in. It was a good thing none of that was connected to anything important right?” John
“Four orderlies dead, one doctor in a vegetative state and that little girl fell right
back into her catatonic state as if nothing ever happened. But, one thing did change. She
wasn't speaking only two phrases anymore. Just the one: He's here.”
“Who?”
evidence lock up. That meant is was now our problem again. The officer that was there
that night swears to this day, on the graves of his unborn children, that what he saw
really happened. But wouldn't you know it, the security cameras stopped working at
He says that the red letters changed, not into a new phrase or dull like it had done
so many times before, No he says they shifted and molded into two round discs, eyes.
He said that the screen cracked below the eyes and formed into a smile, a smile too long
for a human and the teeth it showed were sharp, like a sharks mouth you know, just a
row of chompers made to tear things apart. Next thing this guy knows is he sees fingers
push through the glass as if it were water. First one hand, then a second and then
whatever it was pulled itself completely out of the computer screen, He says it stood up
and looked right at him through the cameras. It's skin was black, and I don't mean POC
black, Like African American black, now he says pitch black. The feeling he got staring
at those two red eyes were as if all the darkness of the Deep Web had just taken form. It
grabbed a red hoodie from evidence and grabbed the handle. Then it was gone.”
John waited for any reaction from the IDL agent and he saw a shiver go through
Agent Becks body from shoulders to their toes. The agent knew what he was talking
about.
“now this was something like ten years ago. No one has heard from this thing
since by my recollection. But something interesting has been happening hasn't it?”
“What do you mean Detective?”
“You know what I mean. That saying! It has been popping up everywhere, You are
not prepared. It's been at hundreds of crime scenes all over the country, not just here!
You know what this thing is, or you think you have a good idea, but you don't know
everything! That is why you're here talking to the defunct detective! The detective that
was hunting a ghost! Right!” John was getting agitated at the cool demeanor of the IDL
“But it isn't just the saying is it. That has become a rallying cry for the Black Hats
now. You know it. They have been breaking protocols and laws left and right. Two years
ago they held a free speech rally! The last free speech rally was held in 1999. You're
getting more calls because of micro-aggression violations, pronoun's being refused. I've
seen it, we all have. And on top of that you are here for information on the others.”
“the others?” Agent Becks raised an eyebrow. They were unsure how the
“This one!” John picked up a picture of a blurry image of a dark haired woman
from behind. He threw it at the agent and let it slide in front of them. “Age, unknown.
Race, unknown. Location, unknown. Eye color, unknown. Hell,we're not even sure they
are a woman! Alias is Low Fi. She's been connected to Murder, breaking and entering,
kidnappings, and a slew of other crimes. I have a file cabinet in the back that has a
whole drawer filled with cases connected to her. They call her Low Fi because they
believe that is how she maneuvers undetected. Low Frequency, old tech, outdated
cybernetics and equipment. No one has ever seen her long enough to even get a clear
picture!”
John slid four other images of four separate women towards Agent becks and each
one looked completely different. “Hell, each of these women could be here. No one
knows, but that phrase, that is her calling card! That is Its calling card!”
“I know about all of them!” Detective Orville cut her off. “I know about the so
called Cyber terrorist you are looking for too. That Esperion breach way back in 2017,
the one that stole credit information from millions of people. They bragged that they
could never be hacked, that their firewall and defenses were impenetrable. I know that
the firewall was manipulated after it happened with that damn phrase embedded in it.
That wasn't shared with the news, the public, or even low level IDL members. Only
White Hat brass is supposed to know this right? Zell Stryke! One of the worse Black
Hats that have ever graced cyberspace. I have another drawer filled with cyber crimes
attached to him. The bank that spit back millions of credits to random bank member,
Zell. The power grid that got shut down and held for the ransom of the first issuance of
all of Penthouse Magazine. Zell! Or what about the Super Bowl feed a couple years ago?
The big screen got taken over and showed hardcore interracial Nazi porn! That was Zell
Stryke too!” John had to stop himself from laughing at the last part, he and most of the
Detective Orville saw Agent Becks blush and he calmed down. He had to
remember that even though they were IDL they were still human, at least most of them
were.
“So then you know about the berserker?” Agent Becks swallowed softly. The
Detective was a font of information. More than the IDL had expected.
“The Orc-kin? Yes. It was an interesting tale. About seven years ago we had that
influx of otherkin. The IDL made them an identity and a pronoun, and soon after people
were getting elf ears, tails, wings, and what ever else the cybernetic surgeons would
apply. That poor boy, believed he was an Orc, and the girl he was with at the time didn't
help. But what someone does in their personal life ain't my business. He decided to get
the full treatment. Before you all at the IDL made the otherkin surgeries government
funded. He paid out of pocket for everything. Increased strength, increased speed,
increased size, skin discoloration, tusk implants, cybernetic eyes, flattened nose,
everything.
While he was finishing his last surgery, for the increased strength, there was a
power surge. Now people were told that is was a power line that got severed because of
construction. I know that it was targeted and I know who's calling card was left behind.
The cameras show the berserker Brockus in the chair, the lights go out, and when they
come back on the Orc is gone. Now I also know that from reports he couldn't have
walked out on his own power. He had to be carried or helped out. I also know that 'You
equipment was stolen. Things weighing well over a ton went missing in the twenty
minutes it took police to arrive. That is impossible. Unless you have enhancements. He's
“Yeah well, maybe you should have come and talked to me first. I gave my career
for these freaks. I told you IDL jokes about Antwon before.” John sat back and put his
“The red eyed thing that crawled out of a computer screen! Yeah, A protocol. He
calls himself Antwon. They have a following, the Black Hats see them as heroes. They
cause mischief and damage where ever they go. And what is worse is you all have been
trying to find them without even knowing it. You know about the pirate webcast?”
“Yes.”
“That's them. They are flaunting it in your faces. His voice is powerful, when
Antwon speaks, people listen. They are calling them the 'Villains.'”
“The what?”
“The Proper Villains. That is the name of their group, the Black Hats named them.
They ran with it. And do you want to know the worst part in all of this?”
pointed to the large mirror on the wall, the one-way mirror that he knew it was. “I know
that there is an IDL member back there getting me my walking papers! I'm being let go
today because I know more than I should. And once I get them, once I am finished
clearing out my desk and step outside; I am going to finally meet Low Fi for the first
time. More than likely it will be my last time too. Because those fuckers...”
“I thought I was closing in on them. I honestly thought I was getting close. But
they knew where I was the entire time. I got a letter. An honest to God letter. Not an e-
mail, not a text, or a tweet. A post card saying; Sorry to hear about today, tell the IDL
everything. Going to miss you buddy. Signed Antwon! You are not prepared for the
John was sitting at his desk later and looked up as his Lieutenant came to his desk
looking upset. He knew what it was, he didn't know how Antwon knew but he didn't
care. He was glad this was going to be over. He had become a laughing stock trying to
chase ghosts. After being congratulated for his service he was offered a nice pension and
John Orville gathered his stuff for the last time and took his first steps out of the
station as a civilian and as he walked down the steps he continued to look around him
for any signs of the Villains. He could feel them watching him. He stopped and began to
open a new pack of cigarettes. As he placed the first on to his lips he hears a soft but
sing song voice whisper into his ear. “Those things will kill you John. We can't have that
“Can I at least take a look, I mean I've been looking for you guys for years?” he
John looked up and caught a glimpse of red. He saw them, Zell and his signature
blue mask, Brockus and his Orange hue, and Antwon, those red piercing eyes and
cheshire cat smile. He turned and saw Low fi, she was so close he could smell
John looked into what he could see of Low Fi's eyes, hidden behind beautiful
blond hair and a pair of glasses that made her look so unassuming you could easily see
her as a librarian, not the cold blooded assassin her files said she was. Green eyes,
playful and bright. There was a pinch in his back and an intake of air on his part, it was
uncomfortable but he could feel his energy being drained from his fingers. His knees
were weak and could no longer support his weight. In seconds he fell to the ground as
his life's blood drained onto the pavement. Low fi was gone before he had even hit the
ground.